[Audio Empire]

On Mon, 21 May 2012 07:30:33 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

The speaker disappearing act is caused by a simple image shift toward the
reflected sound from behind the actual speakers. An aerial image is formed
in the region behind the speakers, getting the sound OUT of the speaker
boxes and creating the unmistakable impression of the musicians being right
there in front of you performing in your room, rather than sounding like
they are flat cartoons coming from the speakers and strung on a clothesline
between the speakers, with no depth or dimensionality.

You speak as if this is a characteristic inherent in the speaker itself.
Well, I agree that the speaker must be able to image well and "throw" a wide
and deep soundstage, BUT - and this is all important - if the information is
NOT there on the recording in the first place, even the world's best imaging
speakers won't be able to produce the illusion to which you refer. Take most
any classical recording from the mid-sixties to the late eighties and the
great majority of recordings made since then, and there is NO imaging
information on the recording. Most are, as you so aptly put it, a series of
"flat cartoons" 'Strung on a clothesline." This is because most recordings
are multi-miked, multi-track travesties and sound simply dreadful from an
imaging perspective. I believe that one of the reasons that audiophiles still
revere recordings made more than 55 years ago by the likes of Lewis Layton,
and Richard Mohr at RCA Victor, Bob Fine, Wilma Fine and Bob Eberenz at
Mercury, and Bert Whyte for Everest is because these recordings were made
with simple, two or three mike setups directly to tape with no electronic
"futzing" between the mikes and the tape. Many of these recordings have the
soundstage information that allows for good, realistic imaging (assuming that
the playback system is up to the task).

Now, it's true that today's audiophile is more likely to listen to rock music
than he is to listen to classical, and I've always found this to be amusing.
They talk of imaging while listening to recordings which not only don't have
any imaging, they CAN'T have any because the instruments themselves are
individually recorded, not the space which the instruments inhabit. In fact,
in many rock and pop recordings, all of the acoustic instruments (saxes,
horns, woodwinds, strings), if any, are "frapped" (recorded using a contact
microphone where the microphone is designed to be attached directly to the
body of the instrument and therefore picks-up the sound of the instrument
through the instrument itself, not through the air) and then laid down on
it's own isolated track to be mixed into the finished recording later. In
these cases, the individual tracks are pan-potted into the final mix so that
the instruments ARE lined up as if on a clothesline. and due to the extreme
close-up perspective afforded by "frapping" are cartoon cut-outs of the
instruments in question because the space that the instrument occupies wasn't
captured along with the instrument itself.

"Classic" stereo jazz recordings fare little better. Each instrument is
again miked separately, then mixed-down to three tracks. right, left, and a
phantom center channel (where the soloist or principle player (instrumental
or vocalist) is invariably placed). There's no real imaging here either. One
of the things that drove me, originally, to start recording was my desire for
"real" stereo recordings, done right. Since one couldn't rely on the major
labels to do it right, I figured I'd be better off "rolling my own". The
results have been pretty spectacular over the years, and I've rarely heard
anything that sounds as good or images as well on commercial releases. One
would think that with all the resources at the disposal of the major record
companies that they could do at least as well as I can with my modest
resources, but the don't.